If we are trying to feed our cats a more natural diet, then there is no question that plant protein sources are not a good choice (how many cats have you seen chowing down on soybeans or chewing up corn to get that delicious corn gluten meal thing going?).
Cats are carnivores. Carnivores eat meat. If I was choosing a meat-like substance for ME to eat, I would want the one that was actually meat, pure meat, just meat. Give me a big ol' chunk of chicken, or beef, or salmon.
BUT....cats, housecat type and size cats, don't hunt chickens (mostly) and certainly not cows and rarely grab salmon out of streams, let alone take down a deer or a turkey or a lamb. They would eat mice and shrews and chipmunks and small birds like finches and sparrows, maybe a dove, and rats, small rabbits, squirrels, tiny animals. Which do not have big chunks of breast meat and rump roasts and tenderloins where a cat could chew off a half pound of meat at a meal. They would chew up the whole mouse, the whole bird, pulling off the really unpalatable parts (like fur, feathers, beaks, toenails) and crunching up the rest.
So, the ratio of meat vs the amount of guts and bones and connective tissues and fat and gunky stuff is going to be much lower than what we imagine we'd like in a can of meaty food to eat. Giving them a bowl of almost pure ground chicken isn't natural at all. Giving them a bowl of chicken meal, or chicken by-product meal, which includes almost everything but the feathers and intestinal contents, THAT'S a more natural cat food, isn't it?
Thinking it through this way, Meat-Byproduct meal is a better cat food than pure meat. Which seems wrong. But cats don't eat just the meat off a mouse or a sparrow, they eat the whole thing.
Does this make sense? Am I nuts?
Cats are carnivores. Carnivores eat meat. If I was choosing a meat-like substance for ME to eat, I would want the one that was actually meat, pure meat, just meat. Give me a big ol' chunk of chicken, or beef, or salmon.
BUT....cats, housecat type and size cats, don't hunt chickens (mostly) and certainly not cows and rarely grab salmon out of streams, let alone take down a deer or a turkey or a lamb. They would eat mice and shrews and chipmunks and small birds like finches and sparrows, maybe a dove, and rats, small rabbits, squirrels, tiny animals. Which do not have big chunks of breast meat and rump roasts and tenderloins where a cat could chew off a half pound of meat at a meal. They would chew up the whole mouse, the whole bird, pulling off the really unpalatable parts (like fur, feathers, beaks, toenails) and crunching up the rest.
So, the ratio of meat vs the amount of guts and bones and connective tissues and fat and gunky stuff is going to be much lower than what we imagine we'd like in a can of meaty food to eat. Giving them a bowl of almost pure ground chicken isn't natural at all. Giving them a bowl of chicken meal, or chicken by-product meal, which includes almost everything but the feathers and intestinal contents, THAT'S a more natural cat food, isn't it?
Thinking it through this way, Meat-Byproduct meal is a better cat food than pure meat. Which seems wrong. But cats don't eat just the meat off a mouse or a sparrow, they eat the whole thing.
Does this make sense? Am I nuts?
